Step 3: Drum Module

Step 4: Final Comments

This was meant to be a primer and a way to show what is possible with relatively little effort, I probably spent about 2-3 hours a night, 3 nights a w...

So last year I needed to keep things quiet for my housemates, and as a drummer that took a bit of restraint. I surfed around on the internet and found some great web sites after reading about a DIY drum set on Hack-a-day, and what do you know, a month later, I had a full electronic set!

This is kind of a general overview, the basic concepts are fairly simple. I looked at a lot of info out there before building my own, and I just kind of planned it as I built, it just takes a little creativity. Sorry to not include any links, just google it, I couldn't find the specific pages I used, but there is a community of people out there who do this stuff.

So an electronic drum set can run you back $600-3000+, sometimes without a module, my main reason for doing this was to save money bigtime. For comparison the cost for me was around $150-200 for all parts, then the module, so a total of at most $370, which as you drummers know is even cheaper than entry level acoustic sets! The most expensive item was the electric drum module or heart of it all which I will get to later. Heres a quick summary of my bill of major materials and costs:

-Drum pads -> 2 used toms 10" and 12" about 20$ each

-Cymbals -> plastic practice cymbals, $30 for a set

-Bass pedal/stands/mounting hardware -> came from existing acoustic set FREE
(note: I had these laying around, I would suggest being a bit creative about your solution if you dont own a drum set. I had first planned on using pvc or steel pipe, it would be much cheaper as a drum stand can run up to about 100$ for a simple studry one, Perl,Tama etc. The bass pedal might be the only thing you need to purchase, check for used hardware etc, or again, this is Instructables, your crafty people :-P).

-1/4" mono Wires (one per pad) & Electronic parts, $30-40

-Wood -> FREE (scavenged)

-Drum Module, $170 (ebay, "Alesis D4")

Basically I'm trying to convey how little money you would actually have to spend to have a working set minus the drum module. This set, after tuning the sensitivity of the pads (function of the drum module), gets about 4-5 levels of "volume" depending on the power of the hit. It's a great set for practice, and I wouldn't hesitate to play it live if I got the cash for a nice amp together...

I have everything prepared and ready, all the drums are now attached to piezos and piezos to amp wires/connectors. I am getting heavily confused as to how to connect it to a sound module(which i haven't bought yet) and assign sounds to each piezo. If you guys could tell me in detail how to do it, I'll have my set ready at last!Also, if you could find a way to do that without a sound module ( like getting amp to 3.5 mm jacks and connecting them to the PC, and then assigning sounds using some software), that would be great!

you know what "might" work is if you had a foot trigger by your "high hat" trigger and you tapped it when you want a open high hat sound, sur3e it means you have to give up a whole trigger for an open sound reducing the size of your kit, but , just an idea.

Great job man, that's what I'm about to do. I found an old analog Simmons module at the swap meet. I was thinking of you using rock band drum heads but I can't get it apart to see if it has piezos or something else that gives the same effect, has anyone read up on this yet?

I tried a couple of years ago a mesh drumset, it worked great but the door screen mesh just wasn't durable enough, then I discovered the pet proof mesh such as Pet-D-Fence, and just one layer of that mesh will do the job nicely. Better than the Roland or other name brand mesh and a lot cheaper, $ 20 will buy enough mesh for about 3 five piece drumsets (including the bass drum) for an easy method on how to do mesh heads using that type of mesh check out the tuff mesh website . (http://tuffmeshmaterial.weebly.com/how-to-install-tuff-mesh.html)

1)use the software flexi music orchestra - a very user friendly software to play wav. files etc. on the keyboard2)download yamaha / ronald / alesis drum samples over the net or from torrents ...they are very quality one and ull have no complaint3)load all these sample to the key u want for EACH drum/cymbal ...which is pretty lengthy and save it ..4)then comes the hardware ...use and old PC keyboard -ic ...or if u get confused with the ic pins j...just keep it attached to the plastic sheets which are below the keys ...and the pass out a pin ter . rhe conductor holes ..which is again a time taking job ..but cheap and working 5)now on other ends of the wire ..anttach a piezo...which is the cheapest drum trigger ..of if u r keyboard does not get enouhgh gain on tapping ...the attach 2 /3 in series and keep one above another ,,....and place it beneath the mouse pad (to experiment ) ..the strike u r mouse pad to play ....

was it helpfull ?????/////////////////////////don't forget to tell me how was it .....Replyflag[delete]

wont work. piezos generate electricity which is measured to determine velocity. keyboard buttons are simple switches that close a circuit when you push them. you'll more likely fry your keyboard then make a working drum set with that method

u can use to wires and older to any combination of right-lift chips and short them to see the key on wordpad ..then attach a .wav file to it ...short the wires again to play sampple .......attach the piezo and strum it to play .....application : put the piezo beneath the drum pad .... soon to put its instructable ...

some more things i found:i was thinking about triggers and think i want to use the radioshack piezo's for the cymbals, however, i might want to mess around with either the ddrum triggers or the pintech triggers for the drums. they would fit real nice on the rims and can be placed right under the mesh with some foam in between them and the mesh head (or you can place them on the outside and have them right on top of the head). they already come with quarter inch plugs and would require no extra work. for the price of 20-30 each it's not a bad deal for someone looking to invest a little more into having a complete wired trigger set.

here are some links:http://www.guitarcenter.com/ddrum-Red-Shot-5-Piece-Drum-Trigger-Pack-101595478-i1136342.gc

awesome tutorial! thanks so much for taking the time to put it together so well!i am starting to put together all of the supplies i need and came across this, thought it could be of use to anyone trying to make one of these:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/navigation?q=mesh+drum+head

lots of great options in all price ranges for just drum heads all the way to complete sets of snare and toms with mesh heads and mounts.

I had an idea being as cheap as i am. The software I use lets you use a keyboard to control my vst instruments. I was wondering instead of using a drum module why not take apart a cheap usb keyboard and wire the piezos to the correct keys. Would that work??

pieso transducers cannot act as switches by themselves. you would need to use some sort of switching circuit with the pieso for your keyboard idea; i don't think that it would have a very good response rate for fast drumming, and it would not be velocity sensitive either. you could definitely use a computer keyboard based pad for some effects, though.

You can also find them in CD-R containers 2 questions 1)I was wondering how the drum sounds without the midi / wav? 2) Would like to know how the signal would hold up if i don't mount anything underneath drum, and just glue or tape the Piezo on the Skin/RemO thing?

The peizo will work better on a rigid surface, I haven't experimented too much with placement though. I guess in your case for question 2 I would make sure it is well secured, most drum "add-ons" always find a way to loosen over time :P